Curtis Wilkie

Curtis C. Wilkie Jr.
Born Greenville, Mississippi
Education University of Mississippi
Occupation former reporter for the Boston Globe, professor of journalism at the University of Mississippi
Spouse(s) Nancy Roberson
Children Carter, Leighton McCool, Stuart

Custis Wilkie is a journalist, college professor and historian of the American South. He is a Fellow of the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics at the University of Mississippi, and author of numerous books including Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That Shaped the Modern South. Historian Douglas Brinkley has written that, "Over the past four decades no reporter has critiqued the American South with such evocative sensitivity and bedrock honesty as Curtis Wilkie."[1]

Early life

Wilkie was born in Greenville, Mississippi in 1940. During World War II, he lived at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where his parents worked as civilians in the war effort. After his father died in a fire in Greenville in 1947, he spent the majority of his childhood in Summit, Mississippi, where his mother was a schoolteacher and his stepfather was the town's Presbyterian minister. He graduated from Corinth High School in 1958 and from the University of Mississippi in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Career

While at the University of Mississippi, Wilkie witnessed the difficulties experienced by the first African-American students to enroll, and thereafter became involved in political causes. From 1963 to 1969, at a time when the civil rights movement was at its height in the Mississippi Delta, he worked as a reporter and editor at the Clarksdale Press Register. In 1968, he was a member of the first racially integrated delegation to represent Mississippi at a Democratic National Convention, unseating segregationist state party leaders disqualified for violation of party rules. The insurgent delegation of "Loyal Democrats of Mississippi" was co-chaired by his friends Aaron Henry, head of the NAACP in Mississippi, and journalist Hodding Carter III. In 1969, Wilkie received a Congressional Fellowship from the American Political Science Association to work as an aide to Sen. Walter F. Mondale (D-Minn.) and Rep. John Brademas (D-Ind,) from 1969 to 1971.[1]

After four years as a reporter at The News Journal, in Wilmington, Delaware, Wilkie joined the Boston Globe in 1975. He served as a national and foreign correspondent for the paper and covered eight Presidential campaigns. He was the Globe's White House correspondent from 1977 to 1982 and also served for a time as its Washington bureau chief. Wilkie was featured in The Boys on the Bus, Timothy Crouse's account of the 1972 election battle between Richard Nixon and George McGovern. In the mid 1980s, he served as Middle East bureau chief for the Globe and covered the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the 1983 bombing of the US Marines barracks in Beirut, the first Palestinian intifada, and the first Gulf War. On Christmas Day 1989, he was with a small group of journalists who came under fire in Timisoara, Romania, while covering fighting between revolutionaries and forces loyal to Nicolae Ceausescu, the deposed president. In 1993, Wilkie established the Globe’s Southern bureau in New Orleans, where he lived in the French Quarter. He retired from the Globe after the 2000 Presidential campaign.[1]

In 1998, Wilkie co-authored Arkansas Mischief: The Birth of a National Scandal with the Whitewater figure, Jim McDougall, who had been President Bill Clinton's political and business mentor. At the time the book was written, McDougall was in federal prison for his "creative financing" activities as manager of the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan. "McDougal emerges as a less-than-sympathetic wheeler-dealer who lost at the high-stakes games he played," wrote a reviewer in Library Journal. The book was excerpted on The New York Times website, and began with a description of Arkansas:

For much of this century, Arkansas has been ridiculed as America's Dogpatch, a poor, rural home for yokels, a place where hounds amble along dirt roads, chickens peck for bugs in the yard, and well-to-do families flaunt Sears washing machines on their front porches. Perennially, we are at the bottom of every economic indicator, fighting Mississippi for forty-ninth place. Our population is less than any southern state, and our land area the slightest of any state on the continent west of the Mississippi River. No airline uses Arkansas as a hub. The federal interstate highway system bypasses much of the state. Even the name of our capital begins with the word "little." [2]

In 2004, Wilkie's friend since childhood, attorney James P. "Butch" Cothren of Jackson, convinced him to return to his home state and teach journalism at the University of Mississippi. Since 2007, Wilkie has served as a professor and Fellow at the Overby Center for Journalism & Politics.[1] In 2013, Cothren endowed a scholarship in Wilkie's name.[3]

From 2008 to 2010, Wilkie spent two years researching court records and conducting some 200 personal interviews[4] for his portrayal of Richard F. "Dickie" Scruggs, the famed trial lawyer and brother-in-law of former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. Scruggs had successfully sued the asbestos industry, the makers of Ritalin, and insurers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, Scruggs was a lead attorney in the tobacco litigation which was settled for $248 billion. He was portrayed by actor Colm Feore in the movie The Insider.

Books

Other writings by Curtis Wilkie

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Profile of Curtis Wilkie". Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics. University of Mississippi.
  2. ↑ McDougall, James and Curtis Wilkie. "The New York Times". www.NYTimes.com.
  3. ↑ Hahn, Tina. "Cothrens Celebrate Curtis Wilkie with Major Gift to Create Ole Miss Journalism Scholarship: Legacy of 60-year friendship expands with educational opportunities". UMFoundation.com. University of Mississippi Foundation.
  4. ↑ Lynch, Adam (October 13, 2010). "Q&A: Curtis Wilkie on the Wrong Crowd". Jackson Free Press.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/24/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.